Over the past year we have seen some parts of the email marketing industry progress and become more prominent whilst we have also seen announcements which mean certain aspects of email marketing will stay the same for quite some time.

Domain Based Reputation

One of the big issues to arise for me is ISP’s adoption of domain based reputation.  There’s a couple of great articles on it here:

Times are changing for E-Mail Marketing
The coming gold rush with domain based reputation

In a (very small) nutshell, this potentially could mean that you’re accountable for your sending practices regardless of how many different IP’s or ESP’s you go through.

Although in this Return Path post it does point out that rather than being the sole solution to everyone’s problems, it will more likely be another tool for ISP’s to adopt to be more accurate with their reputation filtering.

So what does this mean to you?  Well, basically it’s another step forward in promoting good sending practices and sending relevant emails.  Those of you who are conscientious about your sending practices and campaign content, will see your campaigns strive, whilst those who don’t will see their campaigns continue to lose effectiveness.

Engagement

The best way to adapt to domain based reputation filtering is to keep your subscribers engaged in the emails you send out.  Engagement has become a more prominent issue throughout 2009, and I can see that continuing through 2010.

This post from Mark Brownlow brings up a great point “organizations managing incoming email (particularly the big ISPs) would broaden the list of criteria used to define spam (unwanted) email to include how people interact with a sender’s messages”.

As reputation filtering progresses, so does the definition of spam.  Marketers still looking towards what the law defines as spam will ultimately fail as its definition is now the opinion of each person you send to; legal terms won’t stop a recipient from disengaging or pressing the “this is spam” button.

Have a look at a previous post I wrote for inspiration on how to maintain engagement.

Preference Centres

Another way to keep your recipients engaged is through preference centres.  Okay, not a new subject but it has continued to grow in popularity since it was introduced.

Preference centres are an alternative to unsubscribe links.  They will allow your subscribers to choose what they receive from you.  In theory, this should reduce the levels of unsubscribes you receive – great.  This in turn will allow your subscribers to also choose what emails they receive, which should keep them more engaged in your messages – also great.

So why not use them for your campaigns? Read more here:

Why an email preference center matters
Preference centres and positive unsubscribe processes

Strategy

The new year is a great time for marketers to start to plan ahead for the year.  A post I wrote last year outlines how some campaigns become stale and fall into a rut.  Eventually you could see your recipients becoming emotionally unsubscribed from your messages – an email marketers’ nightmare.

So with the new year in place, why not try planning out a full years campaigns using the email campaign life cycle model?  The idea is that by setting out your campaigns with a definite end to it, it will keep you engaged in your own campaigns as well as your recipients.

Design

News in 2009 was that Microsoft confirming that Outlook 2010 will keep the same rendering engine as Outlook 2007. Despite a big uproar from the email marketing community, the engine in Outlook 2010 will keep the design side of the industry limited.

Here’s an email design essentials post I wrote a while back to help you on your way in this area.

For all designers out there, here is the only guidesheet you need.

I’m not going to lie, I like a flutter now and again and have previously signed up for Betfair and PKR’s sites, both of which, had an active welcome email campaign that followed subscription.

I have also taken to legal digital music downloads since I converted from Vinyl to CD and have signed up to Beatports’ service.  These companies will be the three I’m intending to use throughout this blog post.

As I’ve said before, striking just after purchasing/joining is the best time to start opening a channel with your recipients as their interest is at a maximum.

PKR’s and Beatports were both generic welcomes just explaining the system which was all well and good and my interest was maintained.  Betfairs’ though took it in a different direction and outlined every section of the site into categories for me to try.

It presented a bonus scheme for actively betting in each of these categories – the more you used the site, the more bonus you would receive for doing so.  Now, whether you agree with gambling or not, you must admire the inventiveness of Betfair’s team for coming up with this.  Straight away I was much more active on the whole site (not just the football section) looking at all the other available betting options I could participate in.

This is something that I really think needs to be addressed.  We always say to email marketers to only send something relevant in your emails or you risk turning the subscriber off from the messages.  This still applies to welcome email campaigns, if not more so, as these messages are the first impressions of your company you are sending your new recipients.

Now we come to content and frequency of your welcome campaign.  After I’ve signed up for something, I expect to receive a few messages in the first week or so from the service just outlining what they offer etc.

The problem with this for me as I’m a doer not a reader.  Instruction manuals are things that are left in cellophane wrappers and are only opened as a last resort.  So to send repeated help guides is a bit tiresome for me. 

Unfortunately, PKR did just this, and it has left me not actually reading anything they send me as I found that nothing they sent me was of any interest to me in the early stages.

But, send me instructions with a little bonus for myself, and all of a sudden my (email reading) ears have pricked up.  Beatport managed to successfully do this by giving me a free cd to download.  Lovely.  Betfair were obviously continuing their bonus payout emails and had even been updating me on what I had and hadn’t done in a scorecard format so I could try out new things and receive more bonuses.  This in my eyes was a great piece of personalisation added onto a well thought out campaign.

Now I understand that not many companies can really match what Betfair did on their welcome email campaigns but I thought I’d show you how my personal interest in each of my examples differed due to content and how it hindered anothers’ due to the frequency of emails.

So when thinking about your welcome email campaign, make sure you have in mind a series of interesting emails.  I think as well, additional discounts and bonuses are a great way to not only gain a repeat purchase/use in the short term, but it also encourages a higher level of interest in future campaigns you will send.

If though, your welcome campaign isn’t going to have these bonuses or freebies in, then try to think about the frequency of your campaign.  Too many emails can really begin to put people off from your messages and you could sever your links with them straight away.

Instead of spreading out over 5 emails, try and condense your emails to 2 or 3 and instead of having long explanations or instructions in each email, give them the subject headers and let them search for what they want to read.

What kind of Campaign are you doing?

Clearly define that so you know what your goals are.  If it is a sales campaign you’re performing, too much content will water down the email and distract the recipient from the main goal.

If it is a newsletter you’re sending, try to only send when you have something to say.  People are subscribing to you to receive content and so want something worthwhile to read.

What did you promise when they signed up?

Now this is something which I see a lot of companies lack when they are placing subscription forms on their site – an outline of what their subscribers can actually expect to receive.

Just briefly outlining what you are intending to send them will help for them to decide whether to sign up.  Some might just be scared off by the lack of info or being too vague on what they will receive as they might not want irrelevant emails. 

If though, you already have a list that has been built without this in place, have a look at a couple of my posts to get some ideas on how to resolve the issue:

Passive Segmentation

Preference Centres and Positive Unsubscribe Processes

When Less is More

I find that some emails are just too long and I lose interest in what they have to say.  Most recipients viewing habits are spent just skim reading the email, which is why call to actions have always been heavily endorsed so you can still get your message across.

If you really do have a lot to say, why not put it all into a summary article that has many links in it directing them to the full articles on your site.

Otherwise, keep the message limited to a certain amount and don’t exceed it.  One of my favourites for doing this are ebuyer.  They provide a weekly email, that I feel has just the perfect amount of offers and content in it (view an example here).  I can skim through the offers quickly and see what appeals without getting caught up in too much needless writing.  I know some of you will be looking at the email, thinking that I’ve forgot about some email fundamentals, but hear me out.

Obviously, this email isn’t perfect for everyone and is a bit of a lazy approach to it but I feel that if you’re going to send a sales promotion, don’t divert from it.  Coming back to the issue at hand – sometimes less really is less.  A prime example of this can be found on one of my previous posts.  I receive an email with not a lot in it, and it doesn’t even relate to me. Tut tut.

Content that keeps them Returning

I have always been an advocate of linking through to interesting media from your own newsletter.  Obviously depending on the kind of company you are depends on what links would be “appropriate”.  Linking to interesting articles, relevant and funny news stories and videos will have that mass appeal that will have your subscribers forwarding on the email to their friends and colleagues.

For more on this subject read my post about viral emails.

I think it is well worth going through what they think as it doesn’t matter if you keep referring to what the laws say – it is what the subscriber thinks in the first place which is Spam as they are the people who are reporting the emails in the first place.

Below are highlights of his post and with some handy advice to minimise the chances of coming up against these same problems.

A Return Path study of consumers showed that 50.9% said they used the “this is spam” button “sometimes” or “all the time” when they no longer wanted to receive emails from a company.

To me, this points towards just recipients taking the easy and hassle free route out of unsubscribing.  I wrote a post on unsubscribe links a while back now, concentrating on the placement of the link to offer an easy way to opt out and reduce the Spam complaints.

Silverpop questioned consumers about what they defined Spam as, with 40% saying “email I don’t want to receive” and 35% “saying email from any commercial entity”

I think these results represent the “short-term fix mentality” of some email marketers out there.  Instead of building there lists up, they have gone out and bought a huge list and just massed mailed them. 

I have stressed previously the advantages of self built lists and I think are a majority of people who this won’t effect but at the moment we are in a situation where a lot of companies are turning there marketing efforts towards the cheaper method of email marketing.  I can’t help but have the feeling that the “short term fix mentality” is about to rise a bit in the near future. 

In the same Silverpop survey, consumers gave there main reasons for reporting an email as Spam as “getting too many emails from a source” and “when they had lost interest in emails they were subscribed to”

These answers show a great bit of advice to email marketers who are thinking of revving up their campaigns a bit to try and compensate for a down turn – don’t.  If you value the responses and income that email marketing brings to your company then don’t attempt the perceived easy route and choose to spend your time making the email relevant, interesting and appealing to your subscribers; that will see you getting closer to that extra revenue you’re looking for. I wrote a post about increasing active subscribers that goes into further depth about the subject.

Though there is more information within Mark’s post, I will end my post with two direct quotes:

“Operationally, we define spam as whatever consumers do not want in their inbox.”

Yahoo Mail

“CAN SPAM lists the minimal standards an email must meet in order to avoid prosecution. CAN SPAM does not define what is spam, it only defines the things senders must do in order to not be violating the act.”

Laura Atkins – Word to the Wise

Read the whole of Mark’s post here

So let’s take the laptop as an example.  I’m going to want a laptop once every three or four years, depending on the quality.  I would assume that the majority of people would have a similar habit to me on this.

During this time, I want to receive as much information and offers about laptops as I can possibly get so that I can make a well informed decision for the best price I can find.

I would be happy to see a more frequent email campaign coming from any of the laptop companies that I have signed up for; and any computer specialist retailers should really be sending a higher frequency of emails.

You see, as soon as I buy my laptop, I’m not going to be slightly interested in what they have to say anymore, and will unsubscribe from them.  They really only have a very short time frame in which to grab a large majority of their recipients attention, and more importantly, convert them to sales.

At the other end of the spectrum though, are companies that really don’t need to send that many emails at all.  I help a friend with his email campaigns for a valve company.  Now as I’m sure you can guess, the world of valve sales isn’t the fastest paced and intense of marketplaces and he only really does a bi-annual email with latest developments.

When you look at his customers and recipients, they still tend to have a quite high brand loyalty and therefore will not need reminding of his companies presence but can just try to maybe persuade potential customers with new developments.

Again a general rule is to keep the emails more regular than that to ensure that the potential customers’ interest is sustained, but I think that anything more than a bi-annual campaign would be more damaging to a customer’s interest and may cause the subscriber to switch off from the newsletter as the messages get watered down with irrelevant content.

So I think that the frequency of your campaigns isn’t as important as how well received it will be.  Make sure that the campaign you send out isn’t just for the sake of sending an email out but is full of relevant, intriguing information that will maintain your recipient’s interest.

If that means that you must decrease or increase your email activity, don’t be scared off by rules telling you otherwise.

Sporting Events

Wimbledon – 23rd June-6th July

Major Festivals

Notting Hill Carnival – 24th & 25th August

Bank Holidays

25th August

There’s also Fathers Day on the 15th June

With webmail addresses it basically comes down to authentication and reputation; with business addresses it’s a completely different game.

You basically have to make a decision. You either:

Accept that some of your emails are going to bounce and not go over the top on compromising on your design and tracking capabilities.

Or

Concentrate your campaign on deliverability and strip out as much as you can. Remove tracking and send a text email.

Okay, so it’s not as black and white as that but you get the idea. And before you ask, there really is no right and wrong answer. I’ve seen customers of ours have success with both methods so it really does depend on what the content is and what you’re trying to achieve from your campaign.

You’ve also got to look at which stage of your email marketing campaigns life you’re in. Are you starting up and generally just looking for exposure? Do you need to gage the success of your campaign to see where you can improve? Is it more the case that you have an amazing offer on at present that you want everyone to see? Is it your companies newsletter that is just updating people on recent events? Are you concerned about really putting your companies branding across?

These questions really have to be brought up at the beginning of your campaign planning so that you have a clear idea of what your goals are.

Unfortunately there is no general rule for business address as each organisation has different rules for what can and can’t get through the filter so don’t be shy to test the water.

This article will have links to previous posts I have created throughout it that go into further depth about certain subjects.  I hope this helps!

1. Your open rate is low

Okay, so your campaign is stumbling at the first hurdle.  You need to ask yourself the following questions:

How was my recipient list created? 
If the answer to that question was “it was bought” then you can’t be expecting miracles.  If you’re receiving opens of around 10 – 15% I wouldn’t be that surprised.  If your list was self built, I’d expect your open rate to be between 15 – 30% as a minimum. 

Is your email subject enticing them in?
It’s all well and good having amazing offers and content in the email, but not letting the world know about it in the subject line is a cardinal sin.  The subject line needs to be a very short summary of what they can expect inside.  Scrap the “March 2008 issue #1” and go for “15% off of selected items with this email” or “deliverability articles and tips”.  That way you can entice people who are interested in the content in. 

If you are doing this but are still receiving low opens you have to ask yourself “am I putting in subject lines that might be specialised to only a group of my recipients?”  By no means is this a bad thing. In fact, it could improve your eventual sales as you’re targeting areas of your list.  Just because you’re getting an open rate of 15% doesn’t mean that the same people are opening your emails; you may have an active readership of 30% but your emails don’t appeal to all of them.  Just remember not to stick to one area though or the other subscribers will switch off.  The best thing to do would be to segment your list into several lists and then send targeted emails to each of them.

Are you receiving a high level of bounced emails?
This could be a deliverability issue.  Firstly, is there a large amount coming from a certain server?  If so, you could have been blacklisted by them.  You will need to contact the postmaster there and sort out the issue with them before sending again.  To prevent this from ever happening though, make sure you have a decent list hygiene routine in place.

If your list is predominantly business addresses opposed to webmail addresses, the likelihood is it is your content that is causing the blocking.  The problem with business addresses  is that there is no standardised reason for getting blocked by them, some filters block tracking links within the email, some block it because of words within the email and some just don’t get along with html altogether.  It really will be a case of trial and error.  Be prepared to compromise on your design and content though.  You may have to lose your tracking facilities to increase the success of your campaign.
 

2.  My link click-through rate is poor

Your open rate seems fine but your click-through isn’t.  The good news is your list are at least still listening to your message but for how long we don’t know.  This can be attributed to the content of your email.

Content
You need to be clear and to the point.  Don’t go over the top with content or you risk losing the recipients attention.  IT could be that the recipient just isn’t interested in what you’re writing about.  In which case you need to look at what you have previously promised, or done.  That subscriber may have initially signed up as you promised to give away special offers exclusively to your email subscribers.  Now though, you’re just updating them on developments about your company and informing them of new lines of clothing….but where’s the offer? 

Design
Maybe you’re keeping to your promise of content but you’re still not getting those click-throughs you desperately want.  Well the finger can be firmly pointed towards your design and layout.  Is your offer tucked away near the bottom of the email?  Is it bold and stand out enough?  You need to make sure that your recipients eyes are directed to wherever your “call to actions” are.  Do this and you will see those click-throughs rocket.   It could though, be that your email just doesn’t look that nice.  People make judgements within the first few seconds of looking at an email and if they don’t like the look of it, they will not even bother with the content (which is also another reason for having your call to action in an eye catching place).

3. My Conversion Rate is Poor

This is probably the most important indicator of your campaign.  If you have so far followed the advice on this article (and the rest of my blog) you should be seeing a good level of conversions now.  If that is still not the case then there could still be a couple of issues that need resolving. 

Firstly, are you directing your recipients to the exact page they wanted to go to.  If they wanted to see the offers on some of your products don’t go and send them to your index page.  Having to look for the product they want will turn them off of the idea. 

Secondly, make sure that your campaign matches your websites branding.  There is a lot of spam on the internet (you may have noticed) that is still hindering people’s confidence in e-business.  It is your job to minimise this, and the best way to do so is by having a consistent branding throughout your communications with the public.

Well, that should have your campaign back in working order now.  If you’re still having problems, email me with your problem and I’ll try and give you a hand.

There was a recent debate on the email marketers club from someone who wanted to send out emails to all the contacts he had (500,000 or so) but only 200,000 had actually asked for any further communication from them.  He wanted to send them a free voucher to spend at his company’s store.  The thing is, however tempted you are to send to those others, they opted out for a reason.

That’s not really the point of this post.  There was hefty debate over this mans’ proposal, and though the majority disagreed with him sending to those “opt-out” recipients, some decent alternatives were brought up.

The best idea was an open “send to friend” on this voucher he was going to send his customers.  So not only is he not treading on anyone’s feet, but any forwards that his recipients are sending are increasing his own marketing spread.  Not only that, but his recipients are actually doing some marketing work for him; sending the message to friends who they think might be interested in the product.

It’s not all that easy though.  You can’t just stick a send to a friend in the newsletter and think that people will instantly be inclined to forward it.  Like the above example, send an incentive to both forwarders and the recipients.  Something like “refer a friend to our list and receive 15% off of your next purchase with us”.  As ever I’ll leave you to work out what incentive would best suit your company, but just think of the potential that a well-constructed “send to a friend” could do for your company.

Tonight’s dinner aside, this is something which needs to be paid attention too.  I have read blogs recently from people who are saying that they are turning back to email in protest to social networking and stating that email is still king.  These people also happen to be in the email marketing field.  Unfortunately, the world of email marketing can’t exist just because there are stubborn email marketers out there who are refusing to change over.  Email marketing will still work with the younger generations; we just have to remember that the concentration on their inbox is probably going to be considerably lower than the older generations of email users.

I’m lucky enough to be in a situation where I a) have brothers and sisters who are full social network addicts; and b) Am at an age where I once used email and converted to social networking, so have knowledge of my own changing attitude towards email.

So when are the younger generation going to use their email inboxes?  I read somewhere that 91% of internet users still read and send emails.  I find this quite a crude generalisation in favour of the effectiveness of email.  Don’t get me wrong though, I do believe email does still work effectively.  What has to be considered is the age generations that read email, read them with different drives.

Okay, so that really isn’t a revelation.  Marketing 101 would tell you that different age generations have different motivators. This though, is about a generation actually changing their motivation from the pre-defined one.  Social Networking has basically drawn the attention away from the inbox and towards them in terms of personal communication.  Though I haven’t read any data to back up this claim, this must mean that the time actually spent looking at their inbox has drastically reduced.

So it comes down to how exactly to grab their attention in that shorter time frame you have.  From personal experience, I don’t really bother with any of the newsletters.  If I’m going to open an email it’s because it says something like 75% off – end of season sale.  I basically don’t want lots of content; I want deals and plenty of them.  I also pay absolutely no attention to emails that have come from 3rd party sources so being on an email list is pretty pointless with me.

Now I know I’m only using a very small group of people as my test subjects (me, my family and close friends) but there was a general consensus that this was the case with the rest of them as well.

What’s even worse is that the emails I do actually bother to open are what I advise our customers not to do in terms of design.  They are just one giant image with clickable links in the image itself.  This has led me to think that content filtering will become even less important in the future of email deliverability and that emphasis will be further placed upon whitelisting and sender reputation.

Why not also consider when these recipients are most likely to concentrate harder on their online email accounts.  Working hours are probably the best time to send your email marketing campaigns.  As most work places have blocked facebook and myspace, the concentration will have shifted towards email during working hours (providing that email hasn’t also been blocked), especially seeing that you can actually view facebook posts from your email account now.

So the future for email marketing will pretty much stay the same in all honesty.  A few things will have to change.  I can see the lure of buying or renting lists diminishing in some areas of the business world as the effectiveness of them decreases.  I can also see us stepping back a bit in terms of content and design.  I think people have already, and will continue to care less about the content and how they word their emails and focus more on the sending reputation they carry.

I would love to hear your thoughts on what I’ve said.  Whether you agree or disagree, it’d be great to let me know what you think.